Welcome to Austin! Sure, some would see the news that your company plans to centralize operations in the self-styled "Live Music Capital of the World" as occasion for another snarky rant about condo towers, failure to "Keep it Weird" enough, and all that tired noise. After all, y'all are best known for filling the uncomfortable silence of elevator cabins with anodyne soundscapes, a practice that has been louted, lamented, and lampooned plenty.?>

And like any trendy spot from Portland to Brooklyn to Nashville, this town has more than its share of folks who'd like to close the door behind them, forever freezing the culture and skyline as they appeared on arrival (full disclosure: I lived here in the early 1990s, did the New York thing, then married the finest girl born in Austin. We moved back here together).

But after reading the report on the web site of the Charlotte Observer I thought: Why be that guy? If Austin's vibe can survive the successive tech waves, the reign of Rick Perry, and, of course, the Lance Armstrong fiasco, what do we have to fear from Muzak?

I would argue, this is a new golden age for the city, but not an account of the reactionary groupthink emblazoned on the T-shirts of every sorority girl defending all that is right, proper, and "Weird." Just look around: The festivals have grown magnificently diverse. KOKE-FM is back. The public radio station split into two frequencies to spin more music. You can still play chicken-shit bingo on Sunday afternoons at Ginny's Little Longhorn while Dale Watson tears it up onstage. But there are also more good, young bands taking advantage of the new economics of the music business to build sustainable careers here. That prospect used to be impossible. The long list of musicians who had to leave town to make a go of it only starts with Janis Joplin.

One reason, I think, is that we still love music. My cohort is too old for forming bands now (some do anyway), but we love to listen to music, we love to play music and we especially love to talk about music. For example, a buddy of mine runs an extraordinarily complex fantasy rock band league, where the only unwavering rule is that you can't draft Jimi Hendrix, because that would be unfair. Another good friend, the deejay Rick Daddy, has helped me work through the cognitive dissonance of accepting that Exile on Main Street is the best rock album ever made, but not the best Stones album. And just this morning, on the way to pre-school, my son announced that his favorite Waterboys song is "Strange Boat" (yes, I felt immense shame for having picked "Whole of the Moon," but I was in distracted-dad mode when he asked me to go first. While I've considered switching to the band's stunning live cover of "Purple Rain," I don't want to confuse the boy, so I'll probably just settle on "Church Not Made With Hands").

Anyway, Muzak folks: Glad to have you. Take a look around. Have a taco, possibly with kimchi. We'll find a spot for your stuff. Before long, your musical influence will become just another part of the glorious, cacophonous, and enduringly weird (little-w) debate.